sharon cuneta must lose weight. soon.

don't get me wrong. i love sharon cuneta. in my world, sharon could do no wrong. it's just that as i was watching pinoy box office, i caught the tail end of pasan ko ang daigdig and she was thin. really thin.

and i think back to the sharon i saw on tv last sunday. not thin.

it was then that it dawned upon me. i love sharon so much that i've emulated her weight. and, minus the getting pregnant and marrying before she was legal, i'd like to believe i'm going through the same issues she went through when i was her age: career, love, family, yada yada yada.

so i'm thinking, if sharon finally loses all the excess baggage, maybe i too will lose the weight.

p.s. for the record, i've begun eating cereal (whole wheat cereal, is this me?) for breakfast and i've bought myself a package of instant oatmeal to eat whenever i feel the urge to eat junkfood while working on a case. i've heard people losing weight thanks to cereal and oatmeal. hopefully, one day, i'll be one of those people too.

when i picked my red car, i wasn't really thinking of how attractive it would be when it comes to MMDA and other traffic enforcement officers. but after being flagged down for tiny traffic violations at least once a year since i started driving, i now know better.

anyway, since i started working for the government, i've learned that most traffic enforcement officers will be reasonable once you tell them that you work for the government too. they smile at you, you smile at them, they remind you not to commit the same mistake, you promise not to commit the same mistake, everybody happy.

last friday, though, i met my match.

an MMDA officer flagged me down for apparently being in the wrong lane. i was on the third lane, on my way towards the coastal road when an fx on my right made a left turn, effectively forcing me to ram down on my brakes and let him pass before i could go on my merry way. imagine my surprise when instead of signalling to the driver of the fx, the traffic officer signalled at me.

me, the girl on the third lane.

dutiful citizen that i am, i stopped and gave the officer my license. he then informed me that i was on the wrong lane. i reasoned out, but i was on the third lane. he told me that from first to third lanes you're supposed to make a left and fourth lane outwards go straight. so i argued, if you're penalizing me for not making a left, then you should have penalized the fx driver too for turning left when he was on the fourth lane.

no, he reasoned out. the driver would not have almost hit me had i made a left like him. i was wrong he pointed out. but then, i asked, shouldn't he have gone straight? he said, no, you should have turned left.

it got to the point that he was so pissed at me for reasoning with him (and for probably having a brain, cause, really, you see my point, right?) that he said, if you don't want to believe me, then i'll give you a ticket and you can question it when the time comes.

now, i didn't go through the gruelling debate society trainings, get humiliated in law school, and study for the bar twice to let him get the better of me, especially when his argument was so clearly flawed. so, it was then that i demanded to see his supervisor.

he then gave me a new argument: first to third lanes go left, fourth lane can either go left or straight, and from the fifth lane onwards, straight. now, wait a minute, i told him, now there's a new set of rules? he said, no, it's always been than way. then i asked, but where's the paint on the road? how do i know you're not making this up as we go along.

by this time, he was so pissed at me he even went as far as telling me that he wished i got into an accident so that he could have made out the report and i would have seen how i was in the wrong. i told him i realized i may have been wrong but i am not about to accede to the fact that the fx driver wasn't wrong simply because they said so. and, absent any markings on the road, how am i to believe that he's not making the rules up as we go along?

at the end of the day, i was able to talk to his superior who was clearly more reasonable than he was. i explained my position and the faulty reasoning of the other officer. i also told him that absent any arrows on the road, how am i to know where i'm supposed to be when, in a five-lane road, the third lane usually can go straight already?

reasoning (and brains) will always win out in the end.

i got my license - no ticket mind you - and left the other officer huffing and puffing as he made his way back to his post hoping to catch some poor person who he can scare into submission.

incidentally - in the event you get caught, REFUSE to allow them to write down "reckless driving" as your violation. this merits the highest penalty and once you've had three violations, they can suspend your license. force them to be specific in writing down your violation and if they're unable to, challenge them. you don't actually have to pay the fine immediately. if you read the back of the ticket, you can actually challenge the legality of the ticket at a hearing specifically scheduled for that.

fugly

that's how i feel. after almost two years of evading the uniform issue, i now have to wear one.

well, not at least until august. or september. or october. maybe if i keep my fingers crossed, not until november?

i don't care. all i know is that while the pants fit me well, i'm stuck with tops that are too short on me and are a bit wide. makes me feel like a teapot if you ask me. hopefully, the guys who made my uniform will be able to fix it and when i actually have to wear them, i'll look halfway decent.

but i'm telling you now that if i end up alone, single, and horribly obese ten years from now, i'm not blaming myself. i'm blaming the uniforms they're making me wear.

never trust your brother to pay the bills. or at least trust him when he says "just reimburse me for the cable payments so i can get the points in my credit card." chances are, you'll wake up one day and realize you don't have cable anymore.

there was a time when my brother used to handle the money around the house. then, he hooked up with this chick and stopped living at home for a while, so i decided it would be better if i took care of it. i opened a bank account, enrolled all the bills, and religously made a trip to an atm machine once a month to make the necessary transactions.

i do it for meralco and pldt phone bills. i used to do it for cable, too, until my brother volunteered to handle the payments himself.

so, monthly, the bills would come and i'd ignore them. they're getting paid, i smugly though to myself.

this morning i woke up and, since my routine dictates i do this, searched my room (v. v. messy room) for the remote control and opened the television.

blue screen.

ah, i always get reception problems with etc and etc second avenue, i told myself, maybe this is just it. i then changed channels. channel 2. i ALWAYS get channel 2.

blue screen.

my once sleepy self then jumped out of bed and searched for the cable bill which, all this time, had been innocently staring up at me from a table in the living room. turns out we hadn't paid cable in months and there was a disconnection notice already. and we have to pay TODAY or our cable will be cut off.

so, first thing i'll do is to make the necessary payments. and, hopefully, the absence of cable is just a glitch. it did say on the bill we have to pay on or before today so i have until midnight to make the necessary payments before they disconnect my cable. anything before that and i might have to litigate my first personal case soon.

i've turned into an insomniac and i blame abs-cbn's games uplate live.

i've never had any problems sleeping. save for a couple of days here and there, sleep comes to me like money to donald trump. so the fact that i've been wide awake at night for the last three weeks can only be explained by one thing: games uplate live.

i used to catch it after i'd arrive home from lingkod. there'd be this perky girl and i'd be amazed at her ability to have fun all by her lonesome. i admired her for being so perky so late into the night. in spite of these, i never thought of actually spending time watching her.

but then one night, i did. i was so into it that i actually registered, downloaded a ringtone (i think), and actually waited for them to call me. they never did, but i ended up being an addict.

i've watched it every single night since. and, while i have never succumbed to the temptation of downloading again, i have yet to sleep before 2a.m. since i began watching that damn show.

who knew that a missed call on my phone would make me happier than moses? (of course i don't really know if moses were really happy, but must've been, right? he did part the red sea.)

see, i had dinner at a friend's house and i left my phone in the car. when i got back, i checked my phone and there it was: one missed call from the boy i love.

now, ever since that valentine non-date and ever since he's sort of stopped talking to me, i've deleted his number from my phone. i'm like that - i delete people's numbers either to (1) forget them or (2) stop getting in touch with them or initiating conversation which would, eventually, lead me to forget them. under the circumstances, it was perfect right? of course, i eventually learned the reason for his disappearance in my life and i've since learned that he considered talking to me about it but didn't but neither of these newly-discovered evidence led me to save his number in my phone again.

but then again, i did recognize his number, so, so much for deleting, right? anyway, i'm digressing.

when i saw his number on my phone screen, my overactive imagination rose to the occasion and came up with a million and one scenarios. for lack of material space and time here are a few:

1. he wanted to resume going out.
2. he wanted to apologize for disappearing. then he'll ask me out.
3.he realized he liked me. a lot. then he'll ask me out.
4. he realized he loved me. a lot. as much as i love him. maybe more. then he'll ask me out.

obviously, you get the drift - everything leads to him asking me out.

after i've gotten my voice to normal pitch and my heart stopped hyperventilating, i pressed call and his phone started ringing.

boy i love: rosa?
me: you called.
boy i love: i did?
me: yes. i got a missed call from you.
boy i love: must've pressed it by mistake.
me: (to self) NOOOOOOO!
me: (to him) oh.
boy i love: what time was this?
me: i didn't check.
boy i love: ok. take care going home.
me: (to self) aren't you going to ask me out at least?
me: (to him) you too. bye.
boy i love: bye.

gawd. how pathetic.

i sould've just texted him. or i should have ignored him altogether. if it were really important, he would've called again, right? and to think i had been so good at avoiding him for the last five months!

so i was happy for a grand total of two minutes. and the rest of the way home, i hit my head on the window over and over again at the thought that i was insanely stupid for having made a huge deal over nothing.

i broke my havaianas

yes, you read that right: i broke my havaianas. my 2 1/2 year old white havaianas.

i've never been a havaianas fan. in fact, i only have one pair and the only reason why i actually have a pair is that my ex-boyfriend for some reason bought them for me as one of my christmas gifts for 2004. i've never really loved them as they ought to be loved, but i liked them. for one, they make packing easy as they can be worn everywhere - from the mall to church to the beach to the bathroom to bed - without anyone criticizing your choice of footwear. and, since mine are white, they basically go with everything. so, together with my trusty tommy hilfiger duffel bag, my white havaianas were a travel staple.

today, i wore them out. i had several things on my to go to list: salon for a body scrub and massage, my parish for a visit to the blessed sacrament, and lastly, to the mall to buy presents. they're going to be perfect, i thought: ok to get wet at the salon and in case it gets wet, easy to slip off when i go inside the blessed sacrament, and perfect for all that walking i'll be doing while i hunt for the perfect gifts. in my mind, i had made the perfect footwear choice for the day.

except that after the shower i took at the salon, with me unable to wash off the oil from the body scrub, my foot didn't exactly stay inside the flip flop and it slipped a bit. the strap stayed firmly on though. however, after my massage, with my feet slippery with oil i was unable to wipe off, my foot slipped again and this time, the strap gave. at first i thought it was just a case of the strap being removed from the bottom part of the flip flop. upon closer inspection, i realized that the straps of my havaianas have cleanly snapped in two.

my havaianas are now dead.

with no other footwear in the car save for my fake yellow havanas and my teal driving shoes, both of which would not only clash with my orange shirt but also aren't good enough to be worn outside my car or in cases of extreme emergency, i had to go home and find something else to wear. being the shoe addict i am, it wasn't hard to find a replacement. but then i realized, i had lost my perfect pair of flip flops. what am i going to wear now to the beach? what am i going to pack next time i head out of town? what do i wear now when i'm too lazy to think of shoes and the most, or the best, i can do fashion-wise is to slip on my havaianas?

i don't know.

i never thought i'd feel this way but i realized, damn, i have lost one of the greatest things in my shoe cabinet. it was like losing a boyfriend you don't exactly love but are comfortable with. it was like growing out of your emergency jeans - that pair that isn't your favorite but is good enough to wear when your favorite happens to be in the wash.

i am seriously thinking of buying my first pair of havaianas. it shouldn't be too hard, right?

today, the government gave us money. like any hot-blooded working girl my age, i wanted to spend the money at the mall.

i wanted crocs. crocs and a bag. i wanted pink crocs that looked like ballerina flats for when it rains. i reasoned out to myself that it'll save me oodles of money since my good shoes won't have to be ruined by the rain so long as i can always change into my crocs. i reasoned out so well that by the end of lunch, gay wanted crocs too.

i wanted this brown woven bag too. fake woven really. more like they stamped the woven pattern on the leather. anyway - i'm clearly getting ahead of myself - i've been seeing the bag on display for the longest time and i've always found it pretty and thought it was expensive until today. it actually only costs 587 bucks.

true to rosa form, i began imagining myself with the bag. and since the bag is huge, i imagined my crocs inside the bag. i imagined going to ormoc (of course i don't have a ticket yet) and having said bag slung on my shoulders. inside would be a bottle of water (to complete the jet setter look) and products, probably moisturizer and what not. i imagined coming home from boxing and there'd be gloves sticking out a bit and a gorgeous guy would ask me, so, you box?

i imagined so much i was only able to type two pages worth today. forget the fact that i had finished reading the records and doing research. clearly my mind was unable to do anything more than contemplate on my possible purchases.

then, again true to rosa form, by the time i was able to leave work and actually make my way back to the mall, i had talked myself out of the crocs (i wouldn't really get to use them) and the bag (too big, and it's not like i have space for it in my closet). what's sad though is that in my desire to forget all about said bag and crocs, i spent roughly the amount i would've spent for the bag at pancake house (uber comfort food, rosa style), national bookstore (uber comfort activity, rosa style), and the grocery (i needed cheetos. i couldn't get the bag, the least i can do is get junk food in my system).

on hindsight, i realized that i - and my diet - would've been better off had i just bought the bag. clearly all those calories were designed to make me forget bypassing the bag.

and you know what's the saddest part of it all? there's a possibility that when i pass by the store window again tomorrow, i'd feel the need to purchase the bag and i'd actually succumb to it.

i need ...

... cheap tickets to tacloban. i found out last week that someone backed out of lingkod's nltc this year at my branch so i get to go. the sad thing is that the cheap fares ended last week. of course, i can go buy fares at the regular rates but then that would go against everything i believe in. rosa, buy something at list price???? no. no. no.

i want ...

... a pussy cat dolls cd. i've been wanting it since last week. i blame the reality tv show and that choreographer there who made dancing "hot stuff" so fun looking. i've gone to a record shop but i couldn't get myself to pay P325 for four songs (i only know/like four songs from the album). maybe a pirated one?

i bought ...

... three new pairs of shoes. well, three pairs of shoes and a bright yellow pair of fake havaianas. i blame the rain of course. last thursday i didn't bring a car to work cause i wanted to save money to buy this lacoste bag i saw last week. bad idea. i got caught in the rain and had to wade in ankle deep running water - in heels. since i had to meet friends for dinner, i bought fake havaianas so i didn't have to walk around the mall in soaking wet heels.

good if i ended there, right?

well, celine had a sale so i bought another pair. and the shoes i've always wanted at nine west were being sold at P595 so i had to buy those too right?

and while i was wearing one of my new pairs yesterday, i saw red patent leather ballet flats on sale (yes - as i said, i don't buy anything retail), and true to form, i whipped out my wallet and bought the pair.

so i can't buy the tickets i need and the cd i want but i can always shell out money for shoes. frankly, that's a bit sick already.

well, not that sick. i still am talking about me, after all.

it's monday. while the rest of the working population have found their way to work, i'm still here, at my aunt's house, slumming.

justice - the concept, not the person - can wait. when you're in a mood as foul as i am in (no, i'm not pmsing), sometimes it's better to just stay out of the office for a while and wait until things have settled down inside you. otherwise, you'd end up forgetting concepts such as substantial justice and just dismiss petitions left and right for failing to comply with a teeny-tiny procedural requirement, say forgetting to note why personal service wasn't resorted to.

considering i had a lovely weekend, i'm not supposed to feel this way at all. i mean, i went to island cove with my ag, i met up with vanessa, carmi, shereen (tama ba spelling?) and direc cathy to give insights about break-ups (now we all know i have had a lot of those!) for a bea movie (i am a huge fan), and now i'm at my favorite aunt's house. it was fun, it was crazy. tiring, very, but fulfilling. sure beat my earlier plan of just sulking at home and watching sex and the city dvds, right?

but now, i simply don't have it in me to go to work. were it not for the fact that i'm meeting up a friend at UP manila later, i'd probably feign some illness (say, PMS?) and spend the day at home. after two years, i'm back to my old self - struggling to find the energy and drive to work.

It's official. We're not on speaking terms.

"We" being me and ex-amazing boy who I befriended, notwithstanding all the nasty rumors that were circulating about him, the boy I sorta dated even though I wasn't really supposed to, the boy who - please judge me not - drives a car that I've wanted to buy since I first laid eyes on it four years ago.

It was Friday night and it was supposed to be an all-sisters activity at Lingkod. See, once in a while all the Metro Manila branches of Lingkod will have a get-together, brothers and sisters altogether or brothers only or sisters only. I've managed avoiding these activities entirely - I don't really know people from the other branches - until some of my friends have convinced me that I have to stop being anti-social and start meeting Lingkod people. So I did, and at the last one I attended, I met ex-amazing boy. Since we've stopped seeing each other, I thought, I'd avoid these again. But since I knew that it was going to be all-sisters, I made an appearance.

Bad move. Clearly, it was wrong of me to have been so smug so soon.

Cause at the end of it, while I was chatting with some sisters at the parking lot, I looked up and there he was. There he was and obviously ignoring me.

So what if the agreement not to date because of SOL was mutual and so what if at the back of my head, there was this nagging thought that he wasn’t right for me? What if there was some small (no. huge most likely) part of me that still pines for PLDT boy every single time I see him. What if he once texted me that his roll number was “prettier” than mine cause all of his numbers were “add” numbers (gasp.). I didn’t care. Clearly, this boy who wasn’t talking to me, this boy who mocked me for talking to him after I’ve started my SOL (we’re not supposed to be distracted, hence being apart and not seeing each other and everything else), this (grrrrr) evil ex-amazing person may not be seeing or talking to me but was willing to allow himself to be “distracted” by picking up the sisters of) his branch from the sisters' activity. And to think that lout once told me he hates having to ferry Lingkod sisters around.

It was enough to kill my self-esteem, drive me to bed depressed and despondent, and to spend an entire morning watching sex and the city - the end of season two and the beginning of season three where Carrie had just broken up with Big and was depressed, depressed, depressed. Watch Sex and the City and eat bar after bar of chocolate.

Anyway, I'd want nothing to do than stay inside and purge myself of my demons - or demon pertaining to ex-amazing boy - but I've got something with my AG. I don't want to go anymore but then again, 24 hours of women bonding, probably a whole lot of junk food and chocolates, and the possibility of doing a PCD song at videoke, who knows. Maybe THEY'LL be the one to force the demons out of me. Ex-amazing boy included.

(the picture has nothing to do with the post at all. but in the spirit of "moving on" and "making myself feel better about myself", on the off chance he actually finds this blog, i want him to realize what he's missing. on second thought, it's so presumptuous to think he'll miss me once he sees the picture. kapal ko talaga.)